Theory: The Oathpact granted Odium Honor's power

[Lightflame]

Yeah, Droz, I'm totally borrowing some stuff from you here. But people build theories off each other, right?

What we know about the Oathpact:

- The Oathpact required the Heralds to go to Hell between the Desolations.

- The Oathpact somehow made Odium unable to kill Honor. (Apparently.)

- Jezrien thought that the Desolations could be stopped by breaking the Oathpact.

- The Oathpact was shattered. (Interesting because of the word "Shattered".)

We also know that Odium, Cultivation, and Honor were somehow working together at some point, as evidenced by the famous quote "Three of Sixteen reigned, but now the Broken One reigns." (Also, Taffa's, "Three Gods!" curse.) And the female Radiant says, "Every pasture needs three things. Flocks to grow, herdsmen to tend, and watchers at the rim. We of Alethela are those watchers-the warriors who protect and fight. We maintain the terrible arts of killing, then pass them onto others when the Desolation comes." (The Way of Kings, Chapter 19, Pages 306-307, Hardcover edition.) Those three would be Odium, Cultivation, and Honor, but I'm not exactly sure who fits into each role.

My theory goes like this:

When mankind still lived in the Tranquiline Halls, a powerful force showed up. This thing may or may not have been a Shard, (I kind of want it to not be a Shard, because I really want to see a godlike thing in the Cosmere that isn't a Shard.) and will be referred to as "Cosmeric Hitler". Honor and Cultivation take mankind to Roshar. The people who stay behind either get turned into Voidbringers, become those guys Derethil met (Hoid did say that it wasn't Roshar), or get blown up by Cosmeric Hitler. It doesn't really matter for the purpose of this theory.

Things are fine and dandy on Roshar for a little while. Then, Cosmeric Hitler shows up, and starts being really powerful. Meanwhile, Odium strolls in to get his daily dose of Shard killing. Out of desperation, Honor makes a deal with Odium. If Odium helps in the fight against Cosmeric Hitler and doesn't kill the Shards on Roshar, he can use Honor's power. Odium doesn't have to Invest himself in Roshar. He just needs to use the Shardic power he has to blow up Cosmeric Hitler. Then, he'll have more power, and he won't be changed by it. Odium agrees, and Honor puts some of his Investiture into Odium, in a way that Odium doesn't think is major. (It would of course be the key to defeating him or something.) Odium, Cultivation, and Honor then beat up Cosmeric Hitler and put him in jail or something.

Odium decides that he doesn't want to break the Oathpact because having Honor's power lets him stick his hands in everywhere on Roshar. Alternately, it was physically impossible for him to break the Oathpact. He could mess with the Highstorms to make them more violent, create a spinoff of Surgebinding called Voidbinding (another thread showed that the symbols of the Surges were pretty much the same thing), or even bring about the evilness of Shardblades somehow. And of course, there's the Thrill. Perhaps Urithiru couldn't be placed in Alethela because it was the most warlike place, and thus Odium's domain? Also, Dawnsingers and Voidbringers seem to be a pretty good match.

Since Odium wasn't breaking the Oathpact, he instead set stuff up so that Honor's side would break it. We know that only 1 in 10 people survived one of the Desolations, so that hints at the power of Honor. With Honor's power, Odium could have messed around a bit to make the Desolations happen (or at least contribute to whatever was causing them). Then, he just had to torture the Heralds until they broke it.

When the 9 Heralds betrayed the Oathpact, Odium was able to kill Honor, but still keep his power. So he does Odium stuff, then kills Honor. However, he's still on Roshar even though Honor is dead. I'm guessing that even though nine Heralds broke the Oathpact, Taln's torture is still holding Odium back. Odium is mostly freed from the Oathpact, but he can't complete his plans as long as Taln is still there. I'm guessing that the True Desolation (The Everstorm! The Night of Sorrows!) isn't about destroying stuff, although that's a perk. Odium wants the True Desolation to come so that he can make Taln break the Oathpact, thus freeing him from its obligations completely. And thus, the fifth book could have the Oathpact being reforged. And after that, there's still Cosmeric Hitler to deal with.

So what do you think of that? Have any comments?

[hoser]

What a fun theory!

For me, Odium has splintered four Shards (the Godlike objects) and seems like enough of a heavy for team Radiant, Hoid and the splinters of Honor and Cultivation to deal with.

Occam's razor cuts me when I imagine another heavy.

The 16 Shards each have the power of Creation. One could extrapolate that Adonalsium was the Creator. There could have been an opponent, who might be involved with breaking Adonalsium into Shards. I don't see any supporting evidence.

I must be missing something, because I don't see the relevence of the Radiant quote, except that it uses the word "three".

The three reigning Shards were apparently working together enough to have an Oathpact, but I see that as more of a Geneva Convention governing their conflict. I don't see any supporting evidence for another force. Honor and Odium could both be reigning while fighting each other, much like Bonaparte and George III reigned in Europe in the 19th century.

[Vortaan]

Assuming the Radiant quote is meant to describe the three Shards that reigned on Roshar, I really feel as though Odium is probably NOT one of the three original Shards of Roshar. Watchers at the rim pretty clearly falls into Honor's portfolio. Herdsmen to tend sounds a lot like Cultivation to me. Which would leave Odium as the flocks? Eh... doesn't seem to work.

Also when it comes to Cosmeric Hitler... it has to be assumed that anything non-Sharic rolling around the universe at Shard-level power is probably the opposite of Creation. Note that this is NOT destruction, but probably something more similar to Chaos or Entropy. One interesting thing about all Shards prevented so far is that they are orderly. All Shardic magic works by laws that can be discovered and in general try to work with natural laws as much as possible. I would imagine an anti-Creation force would disrupt this whole cycle and perhaps create magic systems that clearly sidestep natural laws. I also don't see any combination of Shards being able to stand up to an anti-Creation force, as their raw ability is channeled in VERY specific ways. Maybe Harmony, as he has a balance, but other Shards... perhaps not so much.

[Dros]

I, of course, approve, and like it.

There's also the point in Dalinar's vision of Honor that never sat well with me if Odium is supposed to be the Big Bad. Honor's comment that Dalinar might be able to get Odium to choose a champion seems to be a throw away comment; like a suggestion ona whim and not really the most important thing he was trying to tell him. If Odium was the main enemy, I think he would go into a lot detail maybe giving Dalinar some intelligence on their enemy, but honestly, it didn't seem Odium was his main concern for the visions, it was a big part, of course, because Odium killed him, but there was some thing moire important to tell it seemed. Kind of like, "Everstorm is coming and that's bad. Oh yeah, Odium ganked me. Odium, Odium, Odium, what to do about that guy? I dunno, make him choose a champion? In any event, there's something bad coming...blah, blah, blah."